AmyHall 09/28/2012 at 12:47pm
What age?
A universally successful project can do a ton of good for their confidence and help them believe in themselves for future projects. I teach at an after school arts program in my community and have had a lot of luck with oil pastel projects... you can work and rework them and the colors are so beautiful that all kids seems to find joy in what they are making.

Jenncook678 09/28/2012 at 05:57pm
This year I've been using student created rubric and I find that it's been helpful making the expectations of any project attainable.

RuthByrne 09/28/2012 at 06:12pm
This is a fabulous question showing sensitivity and compassion for your kids. For my students who get down on themselves, I set up informal class time goals(I bet you could color that whole area by the time I get back around), find specific items in their art to praise (specificity makes it personal and meaningful), and start with projects within their skill level (like Amy said).

Set them up for success and then you can challenge them as the year goes on.

Relating the lives and work of Abstract artists is useful too. I start 1st grade art with studies of artists who used fun techniques or materials just to get the kinesthetic joy of creating into their systems. Miro, Kandinsky, DeMuth's circus paintings, chalk &markers;, paint, oil pastels.

Best of luck! Let us know how its going!

imagiNATION 09/29/2012 at 02:54pm
I agree with AmyHall. I have found that a project that kids can really be successful with always boosts confidence. It might not be the project you put in your art show but it will lead to the ones that do. I have also found that really starting simple gets kids the skills to do the tough stuff later. For example this year for observational drawing we started with block buildings so they could just get shapes down. Then we did flowers and now we are working on self portraits. By doing it in steps the self portraits didn't seem so tricky because they knew to just look for the shapes. In past years when I have jumped right into portraits kids freaked out...this year I have had almost none of that!

AmyHall 09/29/2012 at 04:03pm
@Jenncook - yeah! I agree! student rubrics are wonderful in that they build confidence. I did have a situation where a kid, who was a good artist, had poor self esteem and would give himself a low grade, when honestly he always did great on each project. I pulled him aside once and went through each of the criteria on the rubric and we looked at his artwork and once he saw that he actually had done what was asked of himself he became more confident while he was working.

jfrisco 09/29/2012 at 07:54pm
I believe in rubrics also. If a student uses their best craftsmanship, creativity, and follows the goals for the project they are creating - that is a self esteem booster! I make sure to let students know that being a good artist is not knowing how to represent something realistically. It is about having creative thoughts, planning to implement them and seeing them through. When students hit a road bump, perseverance in overcoming the obstacle and using creative problem solving is the real success in the journey. I really believe it is about the process...NOT the final product.

Hope200 02/10/2013 at 11:17am
I am taking a continuing art education course from Fresno-Pacific University called "Creating Self-Esteem through Art." There are 20 lessons that help this very subject! All of my students will benefit from these lessons. Check it out.